Yankees bond with Army

WEST POINT — Growing up in the Baltimore suburbs, Mark Teixeira learned a thing or two about the Army-Navy rivalry.

William Montgomery

WEST POINT — Growing up in the Baltimore suburbs, Mark Teixeira learned a thing or two about the Army-Navy rivalry.

His father, John Teixeira, played baseball at Annapolis and later served as a pilot in the Navy.

Still, taking a tour of the U.S. Military Academy prior to Saturday's exhibition game against the Black Knights proved to be an eye-opening experience for Teixiera.

"The facilities here are unbelievable," he said. "I spent a lot of time in Annapolis growing up. I probably haven't had a tour of the facilities at the Naval Academy since I was in high school, but this is impressive. Their weight room, their football practice facility, their Hall of Fame, it's all just a very nice Division I program. You expect it to be an LSU- or Alabama-type of thing because they have great facilities."

The Yankees' tour continued to the Cadet Chapel, Trophy Point and Battle Monument before ending at the Mess Hall. There, Yankees players and coaches, as well as front-office personnel including general manager Brian Cashman and co-owner and managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner, ate a no-nonsense lunch with a group of cadets.

The players' interactions with the cadets didn't end there. During the game, Teixeira was among the Yankees players to spend an inning watching the game from Army's dugout.

"All game, guys were coming into the dugout and chatting with us and just taking about baseball, anything really," said Army catcher Andrew Johnson. "How our lives are and how their lives are."

The Yankees had done something similar during an exhibition game against Virginia Tech in 2008.

"I saw how much fun it was at lunch," Teixeira said. "We had a very short lunch. It was 15 minutes. I thought there was a lot of more time we could have spent with those guys, but during the game, because it's an exhibition game, we had an opportunity to do some outside-the-box type things."

"It was pretty special," said Army pitcher Chris Rowley. "You see someone who's a household name, like Mark Teixeira, Andy Pettitte and Robinson Cano and Brett Gardner. And not just those guys, all of them. You see them on TV and you see them doing all these great things on the field and when you meet them, they're just great people. It just speaks volumes about the Yankees' organization. We really appreciated every second."

Teixeira did not play in the game, as his right wrist was wrapped in a cast because of the tendon sheath injury he sustained in the World Baseball Classic. He said he has an appointment with a doctor on Monday and is on pace to return at some point in May.

Teixeira, 32, began his big-league career in 2003 with the Texas Rangers, making pit stops in Atlanta and Anaheim before landing in New York as a free agent in 2009. Many of the Army players told Teixeira that they had watched him when they were "growing up."

"You forget that these are kids, they really are," Teixeira said. "These guys are going to be the leaders of tomorrow and the protectors of our country, but they're kids. They're enjoying this time together and they're baseball fans getting to play college baseball. Getting to share this experience with them was great."

Teixeira was a college star at Georgia Tech, where he had a similar experience playing against one of his heroes.

"That was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had playing baseball," he said. "I forgot how fun it was to be in college. When I was a freshman, I got to play against the Braves. Being a kid who was a switch hitter and played third base, playing against Chipper Jones was unbelievable for me. For these kids, I hope that they had the same type of experience."